Note in Vegas Gunman’s Hotel Room Had Details of Bullet Trajectories

A handwritten note found inside the hotel room of Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock revealed calculations of bullet trajectories that would help him kill as many people as possible.

The new details were revealed in an interview on Sunday on CBS’s “60 minutes” with three police officers who stormed Paddock’s room at the Mandalay Bay Resort Oct. 1.

The officers were the first to breach the hotel room and see Paddock’s body, his stash of weapons and ammunition he had stockpiled in what is the deadliest shooting in modern American history.

Officer David Newton from the Las Vegas Police Department’s K-9 unit told CBS that he noticed a note on the gunman’s nightstand when they breached the room.

Newton said the note was found near one of the windows that Paddock had broken with a hammer, enabling him to shoot at the crowd of some 22,000 below. The gunman used semi-automatic rifles that were outfitted with a bump stock, a device that increases the rate of fire.

“I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was gonna be for the crowd,” Newton told CBS. “So he had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there.”

Paddock fired on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest festival and was approximately 400 yards away, within the range of his custom rifles, according to CBS. Paddock’s hotel room was on the 32nd floor of the hotel.

Newton said they got into the room using an explosive, which set off fire alarms, and described the room as “eerie” when they entered.

“Very eerie. Yeah, the dust from the explosive breach. And then you have the flashing lights,” Newton told CBS. “That looked straight out of a movie, you know?”

This was the first in-depth interview that the officers, who were the first to arrive at the scene, have given.

Authorities are still investigating the 64-year-old gunman’s motive for the massacre.

“While some of it has helped create a better profiling to the madness of the suspect, we do not still have a motive or reason why.”

Two broken windows are seen at The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino following a mass shooting at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 2, 2017. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)

Although the ISIS terrorist group has claimed Paddock converted it Islam and was one of their soldiers, the FBI has said that they have found no evidence of that.

Paddock took 20 cruises in the past, many of them to the Middle East and Europe, CNN reported, citing investigators.

The cruises docked at ports in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Greece, Italy, and Spain, an unidentified source familiar with the investigation told CNN. Marilou Danley, the killer’s girlfriend, joined him on nine of the cruises.

The source did not provide more details on the cruises, so the dates and types of trip, as well as the reason for travel, remain unknown. Most cruise ships have casinos on board, CNN’s Kyung Lah and Scott Glover reported, and Paddock described himself as a professional gambler.

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